Recently, the severity of the air pollution, occasioned by noxious gases, such as NOx, CO and COz, in the exhaust of automobiles and other motor vehicles has been increasing. As a result, individual automobile companies, in compliance with exhaust emission restrictions, have developed various types of low-emission and fuel economic vehicles. However, while these advances may produce lower levels of pollution, they do not address the constant fuel consumption waste that is often necessary for public service vehicles as those vehicles are used in regular working shifts. Additionally, the increasing prices of gas have caused havoc with municipalities to keep fleet vehicles in operation, as they face budgetary constraints.
On these working shifts, it is often necessary to leave a vehicle idling with the engine running to power auxiliary equipment in the vehicle. For example, in public service vehicles, such as police cars, it is necessary to keep the vehicle idling to power equipment, as the officer is on a call or monitoring highway traffic. More specifically, because the officer is in need of equipment, such as sirens, CB radios, radar, climate controls, air conditioning and computers, the officer is forced to leave the vehicle's engine on and idling for extended periods of time. Research has shown that, while the average police vehicle's 230 HP engine is idling to provide electrical power to this equipment, only approximately 2.68 HP or 2000 Watts is actually needed. This research has also shown that while this engine is idling for 2 hours, it consumes approximately 1 gallon of fuel. This type of use is a significant cause of the budgetary constraints and amounts to significant amounts of wasted fuel each day while fleet vehicles operate and idle. These increased budgetary constraints become particularly important as the cost of fuel rises and becomes more unpredictable. For example, in a larger public municipalities having 600 fleet vehicles (assuming for this example: (a) 200 vehicles/per 8 hour shift, (b) idling (on average) 4 hours per shift and (c) $2.00/per gallon of fuel), this equates to $800 per shift or $2400 per day in fuel consumed only to provide power to the auxiliary equipment. Over the course of a year, this use can easily cost a public municipality upwards of $1 M in fuel waste during the idling periods used in this example. Accordingly, there is a need for a system that can reduce the engine idle time of public service vehicles, thus reducing fuel consumption, while providing the power necessary to run equipment used during a normal working shift.
While these costs may not affect larger municipalities as significantly as smaller municipalities, there are other factors in this type of use that can have significant additional effects on the budgets of these entities. For example, because an engine is constantly running in this idling manner, engine maintenance is substantially more frequent than the average vehicle. Accordingly, the maintenance frequency and costs of public service vehicles are significantly higher than the average vehicle simply because the engine run/idle times are significantly more frequent. Finally, because of the engine run time required in normal public service use, the life cycle of a public service vehicle is shortened. As a result, municipalities are required to replace vehicles more frequently. Therefore, there is also a need for a system that is capable of reducing the maintenance cycle and increasing the life cycle of a public service vehicle.